


Trust in the Light

by annecoulmanross



Series: Old Friend, Come Back Home [6]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Canon Compliant, Classical References, Domestic Bliss, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:33:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 15,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25550608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annecoulmanross/pseuds/annecoulmanross
Summary: A series of vignettes exploring the relationships between Francis Crozier, James Clark Ross, Ann(e) Coulman Ross, and James Fitzjames in the years 1858-1870ish (aka, afterlife fluff.)All chapters are largely stand-alone, and the story updates every Monday!
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames, Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames/Lady Ann Ross/Sir James Clark Ross, Captain Francis Crozier/Sir James Clark Ross, Commander James Fitzjames/Sir James Clark Ross, Lady Ann Ross/Commander James Fitzjames, Lady Ann Ross/Sir James Clark Ross
Series: Old Friend, Come Back Home [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1653634
Comments: 92
Kudos: 43





	1. Adding Shadows to the Walls of the Cave

**Author's Note:**

> Eternal gratitude to my darling @[ariadneolorin](https://ariadneolorin.tumblr.com/) for helping me on this one, and to my fantastic beta – and supporter of my classical nonsense – @[kaserl](https://kaserl.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> I might recommend reading the preceding stories in this series to better understand how these characters arrived in the afterlife, but the basic timeline is that Lady Ann passed away in 1857 and became friends with James Fitzjames before Francis Crozier’s death in 1860. James Clark Ross arrived relatively soon after that, at the time of his historical death in 1862. 
> 
> The overall title of this set of stories comes from the song “Where the Shadow Ends” by Banners, recommended by the brilliant @[frederickdesvoeux](https://frederickdesvoeux.tumblr.com/), and the twelve individual chapters have titles from songs sung by (or featuring) Hozier.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In 1858 – a decade after his death – James Fitzjames introduces his Aunt Louisa to his new friend, Lady Ann Ross.
> 
> _This first chapter is my fond addition to the celebrations in honor of our beloved James Fitzjames's 207th birthday!_

**Adding Shadows to the Walls of the Cave**

_James Fitzjames – 1858_

+

Introductions, in this place, were always messy. One never knew who might have moved from stranger to acquaintance to friend only after death, and yet it remained rude to assume that one’s friends knew one’s family. 

It was the awkwardness of introductions that fell to the front of James’s mind as he stumbled his way through a greeting to Louisa Coningham, whom he was still only just becoming used to calling “Mother.”

James Fitzjames had previously been ensconced in his and Lady Ann Ross’s favorite corner of the large reading room, talking with Ann about this and that, as had become something of a ritual for the two of them in the last year or so since her arrival. James would come back to the house after a day in the sun, and he’d wander into the room to find Ann contentedly reading a book, or occasionally holding court over a small salon of writers. If she was truly so occupied, James would slip away and seek out some old friend – or, less often, linger and watch Ann listening attentively to her crowd of authors and poetesses, amateur literary gazette writers and polished playwrights – but if Ann was alone, James would find himself a book and join her. Then, they might talk, with Ann sharing a passage from something she was reading, or gentling a story out of James. If she managed to be particularly persistent, Ann might even convince James to try out a verse of a poem for her. 

On this particular day, James and Ann had been sharing a small settee, legs tangled together as Ann read aloud from the last pages of a copy of Plato’s _Republic._ “‘We shall always hold the road which leads above…’” Ann had begun to recite in her quiet, even voice, which carried the words like a ship through smooth waters.

As Ann spoke, however, James glimpsed his Aunt Louisa – his mother, Louisa, rather – rounding the shelves of books that guarded their small corner. 

“Hello,” he called to her, a little louder than he meant, and placed a familiar but still relatively decorous hand atop Ann’s arm to pause her words.

“Hello, James, sweetheart,” Louisa said. 

Ann turned around, slipping her legs down to the floor to sit more properly upright. James missed the warmth, but the notion that Louisa might confuse his intentions toward Ann concerned him. 

_Introductions. Introductions were necessary things._

“Mother,” he said, “This is Lady Ann, wife of Sir James Ross–" Louisa knew something of what Ross meant to Francis Crozier, and a very little bit of what Francis meant to James Fitzjames, absent though he was– "Ann, this is–”

“Mrs. Coningham, your mother,” Ann interrupted, not impolitely. “We’ve met – and please, Mrs. Coningham, do sit and join us.” 

Louisa claimed a nearby armchair, casting a fondly critical look at Ann as she did so. “I’ve told you that you must call me ‘Louisa,’” she said. “Or I will persist with ‘Lady Ann.’” James gathered that this difference of opinion was not new. 

But Ann laughed. “God forbid,” she said. 

“Ann has been a good friend to me,” James said, a little unsteady on his metaphorical feet. He was beginning to feel the weight of the previous sleepless night, when a worry about Francis had kept him awake.

James felt a gentle hand on his ankle where it was still tucked up against Ann’s hip. He glanced up and met her eyes – her smile was warm. He looked back across to Louisa and found her smiling at both of them. 

“Was that Plato, I heard?” Louisa asked.

Ann nodded. “We’re just a breath away from the end of the _Republic_.” 

“I hate to see a philosophy’s conclusion neglected, whether I agree with it or not,” Louisa said, and James bit his lip against the rush of familiar arguments about John Locke and numerous other philosophers (the Platonists among them), who had, for a time, formed the backbone of dinner conversations in the Coningham household. 

Louisa added, “Would you mind if I listened in?”

“Not at all,” Ann said, picking the book up again.

She opened the volume to its last pages once more, and then flipped back to an earlier part of the text – “to give you the complete context?” she explained, making the suggestion a question with a tactful raising of her voice in deference to Louisa. 

Louisa nodded. 

As Ann began to read again, James felt his anxiety slowly melting away, and he relaxed back against the arm of the settee. Though Ann still sat, formal and proper, at the other end, her words carried James back toward his restful contemplation of the text, and he found himself enjoying the reading, even as he slipped dangerously close to succumbing to his weariness – as James often had, as a child, when one of his family would read aloud to him too late into the hours of the night. 

After some time, they reached the passage where Ann had paused, before. “‘We shall always hold the road which leads above,’” she repeated. “‘And when we receive its rewards, like victors assembled together, we shall both here, and in that thousand years’ journey we have described, enjoy a happy life.’”

James hummed in appreciation as Ann closed the volume and Louisa offered some courteous applause. 

“It’s odd to think we’ve somewhat disproven it,” Ann added. 

“Have we?” Louisa asked. 

“Well, in general terms, I suppose Plato’s Socrates spoke correctly about the immortality of the soul,” Ann acknowledged, “but we don’t seem to expect to be reborn back into the living world, a thousand years hence – at least not as far as I’ve seen.” 

“I suppose we’ll find out in a thousand years,” James said. The vast span of time stretching out before them did not scare him as it once might have. 

Louisa shivered a little, as James had once known her to do when fighting an illness. He moved to offer help, but in his lethargy, Ann was quicker, finding a blanket from the chest by the fireplace before James had even risen to his feet. 

With a small smile, she offered the quilt to Louisa. 

“Thank you, darling girl,” Louisa said. 

Ann brushed it away with a demure smile and a quiet “of course,” but James knew her smile well enough to know she was pleased. When she sat back down beside him, she tucked her feet back up beside her on the cushions, settling the fabric of her skirt back over James’s legs, as it had been before Louisa’s arrival. Her feet, resting against James’s shin, were somehow warm. James wished for nothing more than to curl himself up into the furniture like an oversized cat preparing to nap in the sun. 

“It’s a wonder to think that we have so many books here – I wonder _how,_ I mean,” Ann said, running her thumb over the spine of her _Republic_. 

“I suppose we could say that these books are the ideal forms, and the books we had on earth are merely copies,” Louisa grinned. 

“ _Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli,_ ” James mumbled sleepily. “Books receive their fate according to the circumstances of those who read them.” 

Ann looked a little surprised to see that James was still awake, or perhaps bemused to hear him utter his half-unconscious schoolboy Latin. James wasn’t awake enough to discern which, though his mother’s laughing comment that “James always was so _enthusiastic_ about languages,” led him to suspect the latter. 

In the quiet space following this comment, James breathed deep and closed his eyes. 

He could hear the conversation continue on without him, as Louisa described the agonizing process of trying to teach a young James to care about Latin grammar, and how his tutors had only broken through to him when they had stooped to speaking Latin aloud, so that he could hear its sounds and come to see how it was like Portuguese, a dance of patterns and poetry within the words themselves. At some point, his mother began speaking about Homer, and the familiar syllables of the _Odyssey_ – its beginning verses, at least – brought a slow smile to James’s face. He’d treasured fond memories of the bedtime stories that had been read to Will and himself when they were young, full of their parents’ translations and editorial flourishes, much like Louisa’s own writings, which had come into the family rotation when he and Will were older. 

It was with the sound of Ann’s happy, stumbling Latin and Louisa’s smooth Portuguese and Greek in his ears that James at last drifted off, curled up against the settee’s arm on one side and Ann on the other. 

Many hours later, after long shadows had climbed the walls, James awoke with a sleepy mumble. He was warm and languid; his limbs felt heavy and tired. Eyes blinking against even the dim evening light, James looked across the room and found his mother’s chair empty. James, now a bit more awake, realized that Ann, too, had slipped out of the room, for he lay the full length of the settee. With a yawn, James sat up. 

The quilted blanket that Ann had offered to Louisa was now tucked around James’s legs. Placed neatly on top lay Ann’s _Republic_. James stroked a finger over its gold letters. 

“My darling girl,” James murmured.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Historical Notes** : The text of Plato’s Republic that is used here comes from the first published English translation, written by translator Harry Spens (c. 1714–1787) in 1763. The connection to our own dear Harry Duncan Spens Goodsir was too perfect to lose. I’ve modified this text only very slightly, removing just a few words and a punctuation mark or two. The line of Latin quoted by James, “ _Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli,_ ” is lifted from the writing of Terentianus Maurus, an ancient Roman author of the 2nd century of the common era. Fitzjames may very well have picked up this phrase from William Camden’s [_Britannia_](http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/cambrit/fronteng.html) (1586), an early geographical survey of the British Isles, since the translation James provides is based largely on one rendering of the Latin as "Bookes receive their Doome according to the reader’s capacity,” from a 1610 translation of Camden's text, though James’s version also incorporates the spirit of Umberto Eco’s looser translation, “Books share their fates with their readers.”


	2. After the Raven Has Had His Say

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lady Ann Ross and Thomas Blanky discuss, among other things, Francis Crozier’s (very) recent arrival in the afterlife.

**After the Raven Has Had His Say**

_Ann Coulman Ross – 1860_

\+ 

Ann had retained some of the lingering excitement of Francis’s arrival as their small company trooped back toward the grand house perched on the stony cliff above. 

Francis walked ahead; as a newcomer to this after-world, he would have been an odd choice to lead them – had James Fitzjames not claimed his hand in so permanent a fashion and even now remained so close to his side. James knew the way back very well indeed, and so he gently led Francis forward as the two of them spoke in soft voices, climbing the stairs up the cliff-face together. 

The dear young Lieutenant Jopson had already rushed off ahead, on another errand – sent to find someone else who ought to know of Francis’s arrival – which left Ann and a smiling Thomas Blanky to follow along behind. 

“Well, Ann, love,” Blanky said companionably. 

Ann smiled, “Thomas.” 

Thomas Blanky, old friend of her husband’s that he was, had been yet another comfort to Ann – if a more distant and occasional one than James Fitzjames, who had seemed so ever-present and in need of comfort himself these past few years. Blanky could most often be found out in the ice, passing news along the sea-lanes and greeting old ships and sailors he’d known, drifting in the mist. None of it ever seemed to rankle him; not the cold fog, not his lonely command of his steam-ship, nor the many dead men who arrived so fretful and aggrieved upon the pack. Ann still struggled to understand what would bring a man back out into the frozen seas that had treated him so poorly in life. 

But if ever Ann wished to know the truth of the Franklin expedition, she’d found that only Thomas Blanky was ever willing to tell her the facts of what had happened, unvarnished and painful. Thomas had nearly brought her to tears when he told her of his last day, of leaving Francis so soon after Fitzjames had died, of the last look on Francis’s face that Thomas had carried to his death – of how it had not been the same look Francis had worn when he had come out of Fitzjames’s sick-tent, defeated and lost, and told Thomas he’d thought this was how a widower ought to feel. 

But Ann had needed to hear it, all of it, for it was nothing that sweet James could – or would – tell her himself. Ann could trust Thomas in this, too, she thought. 

“How is Francis, do you think?” Ann asked. It had been reassuring to hear from Jopson that Francis bore no obvious lingering marks from his long and grief-filled life – none, at least, like those that had plagued many of Francis’s men, like poor Edward Little or Fitzjames’s dear friend Le Vesconte, both of whom drifted around the house – and each other – like ghosts, even still. So it had been more reassuring still to see Francis upright and well and whole. But Ann knew well that not all sorrows were visible on the surface, and if Francis had been out on the ice….

Thomas had followed the current of Ann’s thoughts, evidently, for he replied with a soft, thoughtful hum. “We can’t yet know, can we?” 

“But how was he, when Jopson found him?” Ann pressed. 

“Not so poorly,” Thomas acknowledged. “Think he’s been waiting for this – I’ve never known Frank to be the hopeful sort, but if ever he hoped for aught, this would be it.” 

Several steps ahead of them, James laughed at something Francis said. “He’s been waiting too,” Ann said, smiling at James’s hard-won joy. 

“Aye,” Thomas agreed. “And now they’re done waiting,” he added as Francis stole a quick kiss from James’s laughing lips and almost sent him tumbling. 

Ann watched them, thoughtfully, “I suppose they are.” 

“Can’t say I ever saw these two coming, least not until it was bloody obvious,” Thomas said. “Always thought it’d be Frank and your husband – only afore he was yours, of course, Lady Ann.” 

Breathing a soft laugh, Ann nodded, “I rather think you aren’t wrong, Thomas.”

“So _that’s_ how it is,” Thomas said, with a gleam in his eye.

“We can’t yet know, can we?” Ann echoed. She hoped it’d be many more years yet. Time for her to talk with Francis, to relearn the quiet man who’d followed her husband like a broad and loyal shadow, who’d treated her like someone else’s fine china. 

Ann thought they might have rather a lot to discuss, she and Francis, before her dearest James arrived. 

But in that time, Francis might have some happiness with a James all his own, Ann imagined, watching James Fitzjames attend upon Francis with such wonder at Francis’s every adoring look and smile. 

In a contented silence, their group climbed up the remaining stairs, and, as they stood upon the threshold of the grand house, James’s attention did not waver from Francis, though he seemed nervous to Ann’s eye. She spied him readjusting his grip upon Francis’s hand. 

Francis then turned back and smiled warmly at Ann and at Thomas Blanky. “I’m afraid I’m rather weary,” Francis said, apologetically. “I may take my leave, dear friends, if it wouldn’t trouble you?”

“O’ course,” Thomas said, and his still-greying whiskers twitched with his wry grin. “Sleep well.” 

Ann pressed Francis’s free hand. “Get some rest,” she said, and meant it. 

Francis nodded to her solemnly, and brought James’s hand up to his own heart. Then, as one, they turned around. 

With a fond sigh, Ann watched Francis depart with James. 

“My dear Frank,” she said.


	3. Mischief in Your Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Francis awakes to a new day, the morning after James Clark Ross's arrival in the afterlife.

**Mischief in Your Eyes**

_Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier – 1862_

+

Francis awoke to the new day with James Clark Ross curled warmly in his arms, and all was right with the world, at last. Allowing himself to hold James more closely to himself, Francis breathed in and out and remembered how it had felt to find him out on the ice, the night before. The way James’s shocked breath had crystallized in the air. The way James’s surprise and joy had felt against his own lips. 

Francis thought that James was still asleep, at first, for his eyes were closed, and his limbs were loose under Francis’s hands, and he was mumbling into his pillow as Francis had known him to do when they were still only midshipmen, and James, exhausted after one of his sledging parties, had fallen asleep on Francis’s shoulder and muttered nonsense into his coat. Francis had treasured the feeling of having held James close, then, when James had been barely more than a boy, at twenty-one: rosy-cheeked and small and foolish and delightful. 

But James was not, in fact, asleep now, for when Francis shifted slightly, James’s hands rose to grasp his sleep-shirt and hold him in place. “Frank,” James said, his voice slow and rough. 

“Good morning,” Francis replied with a whisper – not wanting to wake Ann, who still slept buried under the blankets on James’s other side, and trying to avoid dragging James too abruptly into the waking world. 

James’s eyes fluttered open very slightly, unseeing in the bright morning light as he asked, “Are we really here, Frank?”

“Yes, James dear,” Francis said, and placed a hand over James’s, pressing it more warmly to his chest, so that James might feel the warmth of Francis’s skin through the thin fabric and know it to be real. 

James rolled nearer, until his head rested on Francis’s collarbone, and he blinked into the shadow of Francis’s shoulder, where the light was not so glaring. He then managed to look up at Francis’s face, and frowned. Francis frowned in answer, but James rubbed his thumb over the crease in Francis’s brow until it smoothed once again. 

“You were thinking of something. What were you thinking of?” James asked, stumbling only a bit over the words. 

“Oh, just remembering.”

James raised a curious brow. 

“The trips with Parry,” Francis clarified. 

“Do you remember that dinner on _Hecla,_ in ’27?” James asked. 

This was years later than the early memories Francis had been turning over in his thoughts minutes before, and yet Francis remembered _vividly._ It had been their last expedition into the Arctic with Captain Parry, and Francis had been all of thirty years old, then, too old for the midshipman-mischief that still captured James Ross at times, lieutenant though he was at the time. 

James had only just returned from a disastrous attempt at the pole, bruised and scraped from a run-in with a boat-sledge that had set Francis’s heart pounding when he’d been told about it. He’d barely restrained himself from abandoning his responsibilities and rushing to James’s cabin, where James was supposed to be recovering from what had been described, worryingly, as an injury of the spine. 

Francis had thus been deeply confused and concerned, when he finally found a spare moment, just before dinner, to steal into James’s cabin and had discovered James himself struggling into a patchwork dressing gown made of pieces of fabric so vibrant Francis feared it’d make his eyes bleed. 

_“My boy, what on_ earth _do you think you’re doing?”_

_“My boy?” James had exclaimed, latching onto precisely the least relevant part of what Francis had said. “You’re only four years older than me, Frank.”_

_“Well, when you act like a boy I’ll call you one – how did you even do this to yourself, James?”_

_“Whatever you say, old man.”_

_Francis had glowered at James for all the good it did. “Regardless, you’re not going to dinner.”_

_“And why not?” James had asked. “I need to eat.”_

_“One of the stewards can bring you your dinner here – or I will.” Francis had said firmly, watching James wince as he lifted his arm to slide into a sleeve. “How are you meant to attend dinner if you can’t even dress yourself?” The worry made Francis sound angry, he knew, but there was little else he could do._

_But James had simply grinned. “I’ve gotten express permission to wear a dressing gown to dinner,” he’d said._

_“Why do you even_ have _that thing?” Francis had asked. “On what occasion were you planning to wear it, out here?”_

 _James had laughed, brightly. “Why should I neglect domestic fashions simply because we are without English society to appreciate them?”_

Francis shook himself out of the memory, unwilling to let it carry him through the worrisome days of James’s healing back and shoulder and ribs. Francis had only managed that night’s dinner on _Hecla_ by virtue of drinking in the sight of James in his abominable dressing gown and paying no attention to whatever was being said about the ill-fated sledging effort which had sent half the wardroom to the sick-bay with the beginnings of scurvy. James too had seemed wounded and strained, though he’d hid it well, and he’d in fact been forced to take many of his meals in his own cabin, after. But James had healed up and gone back to the Arctic once more, and Francis had worried and worried – and been right to worry, it had turned out, given the horrific mess that had resulted in Sir John Ross’s march to Fury Beach.

“Do you remember how I used to call you ‘boy,’ when we were younger?” Francis asked. In the years following their last trip with Parry, as James had aged, “James dear” had come to replace it. 

“I do remember, old man,” James teased with the familiar matching nickname that had never quite disappeared, and stretched his legs luxuriously under the covers. “‘My boy’ seems eminently foolish now that I’ve seen the other side of sixty.”

“Not that you look it, now,” Francis said. James didn’t – he looked just as Francis remembered him, his face young and handsome and almost cherubic, his eyes bright as ever. Francis felt a pang of regret that he’d never know what James had looked like at fifty, at sixty. Perhaps James could be persuaded to sit for a portrait, here, and Ann could be conscripted to fill in the extra years. 

“Still, I don’t _feel_ young,” James continued, with a frustrated frown on his face once again. “Perhaps you’ll have to find some name that doesn’t–”

“I wanted to kiss you, that night,” Francis broke in. “Right there at the wardroom dinner table. I was so worried. I wanted to feel for myself that you were alright.” 

James had initially scoffed at the interruption, but as he watched Francis speak, the dry humor seemed to die in his throat. “Did you really?” 

Francis nodded. “I did,” he said, simply to have spoken it aloud. “I still do.”

“I think you’ve waited long enough, don’t you?” asked a sleepy voice from the other side of the bed. Ann’s elegant fingers came to curl around James’s upper arm, and James turned around, dragging the coverlet with him and exposing Francis to the cold morning air. Francis gritted his teeth. What he wouldn’t give for a dressing gown, to be frank. 

“Dearest,” Francis heard James say, muffled in the sheets. “I’m so sorry we woke you.” 

“It’s time I was awake, anyway,” Ann said with a sleep-heavy smile in her words, as she pushed James back toward Francis, who lifted himself up onto his elbows. “But don’t let me interrupt you.” 

“I think we have our orders,” James said, sounding very slightly hesitant from where he lay back against the bolster. 

Francis hummed. “I think we do,” he replied, and leaned gently over James so that he might press a kiss to James’s forehead. “Do you think that will suffice?” Francis asked, teasing. 

James shook his head. “Not nearly.” 

Next, Francis touched his lips to James’s temple for no more than a second. “Perhaps that?”

James bit his lip. “I rather think not.” 

Francis brushed a kiss against James’s jaw. “Nor this?”

“No indeed,” James said. “Perhaps you ought to let me try,” he added, as one of his hands anchored itself in the short-cropped golden hair at the back of Francis’s neck. There was a roguish look in his eye. 

“Perhaps,” Francis acknowledged, and then he said nothing else, for James had pulled him down to his mouth. Francis gentled the kiss, feeling James shudder a bit below him and wanting to draw out the moment of having James’s lips on his own. Everything was warm and lovely and slow, yet every motion of James’s mouth sent Francis’s heart beating erratically. 

At last, they broke apart, Francis lifting up to look down at James, who seemed to have melted into the sheets, for his lips were parted slightly, and his eyes were shuttered in pleasure. 

Francis turned to Ann. She was smiling at them. “That’s more like it,” she said, and turned away to face the dawning sun. 

Resting his head against James’s temple, Francis could feel one of James’s curls tickle his cheek. In a sudden rush of memory and more than a little possessiveness, he whispered against James’s hair a few soft syllables: “ma bouchal.” 

“What does that mean, Francis?” James asked. “You know I never took up with these Irish endearments for Englishmen – present company permitted, of course: I dare say you’re allowed.” 

Francis grinned. “‘My boy,’” he said simply. James laughed, and the sunlight caught in his shining hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Historical Notes** : If you’d like an image of young James Clark Ross falling asleep on Francis’s shoulder, I was picturing him as he looks in [this (often-misidentified) portrait](https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/14455.html), or even just a smidge younger. In Francis’s memory, Ross was wearing [this 1825 patchwork robe](https://twitter.com/IsabellaRosner/status/1289129433769693184?s=20), discovered by the fantastic @[jamesclarkross](https://jamesclarkross.tumblr.com). (I’m convinced that Ross also owned the 1835 one from that tweet as well, and probably tortured Francis with it during the Antarctic expedition.) The moment when Francis feels “a pang of regret that he’d never know what James had looked like at fifty, at sixty,” was inspired by the photos in [this fantastic post](https://indifferent-century.tumblr.com/post/625762061783285760/james-clark-ross-and-the-eyes-that-look-into-your) from @[indifferent-century](https://indifferent-century.tumblr.com). And another round of thanks to everyone on the Rossier server for helping me with the Parry expedition details (an earlier version of this story had Francis and Ross at a dinner party on _Hecla_ in the winter of 1827, which, given that _Hecla_ was already back in England by November of that year, was somewhat problematic.) As far as the details of Ross’s escapades in 1827 are accurate, it’s thanks to the Rossier crew; any inaccuracies should be attributed only to myself.


	4. There Is No Right Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which James Clark Ross finds himself almost – astonishingly – apprehensive about sitting for a portrait. 
> 
> _This fourth chapter is dedicated to our dear Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier on the occasion of (the day after) his (probable) 224th birthday!_

**There Is No Right Way**

_James Clark Ross – 1862_

+

“No, a bit… grumpier,” Ann said, frowning and leaning over James Fitzjames’s shoulder to look at his sketchbook. Her fingers ran over the drawing-paper until his careful pencil-work was ever-so-slightly smudged here and there. “His mouth needs to be straighter. He never smiles for portraits. If it’s not a straight line, he looks too happy.”

This was Fitzjames’s second attempt at a portrait of James Clark Ross. After Francis had voiced an interest in seeing what James had looked like in the years after their last days together in 1845, James Fitzjames – as their resident artist – had been conscripted to render a version of Francis’s James dear that showed him as he had looked in his later years.

It had been decided that James Ross himself could not be an impartial source in the matter, much to his own dismay. So Ann had taken charge, her description producing a first portrait that showed James at fifty: grey and venerable and commanding. But Francis had said that he also wanted to see his dear James at sixty, so Ann had consulted with the generous Mr. Thomas Abernethy, who had arrived in the afterworld around when Francis had, but had seen James several times in that last year before his own death, on a trip south from his home in Peterhead.

And so, with Mr. Abernethy’s assistance, Fitzjames had produced the first lines of a new pencil sketch.

James Clark Ross had initially been supposed to pose for this portrait, but they had reached the point where his contributions were deemed “unneeded,” so he had given up sitting formally for Fitzjames and returned to lounge across the sofa on the other side of the room. If that meant using Francis as a footrest – since he had technically already been sitting there – then so be it.

“Yes, like that,” Ann said, as James resettled his legs over Francis’s lap. “The edges of the mouth should curve down.”

“I’m not humorless, you know,” James called out.

“We know, dear,” Francis reassured him. “But you never smiled, not even for your painted portraits.”

James attempted to voice some objection but couldn’t recall a counter-example in which any artist had depicted him with more than a slight smile.

Instead, Fitzjames looked up from his sketchbook. “When my brother Will had his portrait painted,” he said, “he looked incredibly grave. His wife acknowledged that he didn’t laugh nearly enough, in general, though, so at least that was accurate.”

Francis looked at James contemplatively. “Perhaps you _do_ need to laugh more.”

Before James could ask what Francis meant, he felt Francis’s clever fingers sneaking in under his waistcoat, teasing around the vulnerable skin of his stomach through his thin shirt.

James shrieked, trying to worm away from the tickling to no avail.

By the time James finally struggled away from Francis’s exploring fingers, James Fitzjames was half-way through a long rant about the impossibility of capturing James’s eyes accurately. Ann had, during this time, seated herself on Fitzjames’s knee, and was pointing at the page of sketches as she gesticulated wildly. “The eyes – they’re more piercing, you know?” she said, interrupting Fitzjames’s grumbles.

When Fitzjames peered across the room at him, James felt almost exposed – the man had piercing eyes himself, though he smiled so continuously one hardly noticed. James shivered, and tried to hold himself with the poise one ought to have when posing for an artist: his chin up, his jaw set. Francis, who evidently saw this, patted James reassuringly on the knee.

At last, Fitzjames held up his sketchbook. James found himself looking at himself as he’d appeared in the mirror so short a time ago, in a different life: his eyes were dark and intense, framed by age-lines, his cheeks were set off by a high, fashionable collar, and his hair, showing off a single dramatic curl, had been made to look brightly, blindingly white. His mouth, as his Ann had requested, was set in a pessimistic line.

James couldn’t deny that the man was a good illustrator, but – “Surely I was never so old as that? I look like my own grandfather.”

“I _like_ you like that,” Ann declared. “The handsomest man in the navy.”

Francis smirked at her. “As I understand it, he forfeited that title when he married you, my dear. Last I heard, my James darling held it.”

“I’m happy to share,” Fitzjames called out.

Ann looked contemplative. “Does one have to be a bachelor, then? To be the handsomest man in the navy.”

“If so, that rules both of us out,” James told Fitzjames, who opened his mouth to deny this before seeming to reconsider. Eventually, he simply shrugged and smiled helplessly at the notion.

“I do think you were lovely, James dear,” Francis said, with his hand on James’s shoulder and his voice wistful. “I wish–”

Something about Francis’s unfinished desire led James to think on how none of them would ever know what his Ann or Francis’s James darling would have looked like in their old age; the two of them remained so very young. The melancholy of this thought sent James huddling against Francis’s side, appreciating his closeness. Francis gathered him up in a gentle embrace.

From within Francis’s arms, James looked over to where Fitzjames sat, pinned down by Ann, who had settled on one knee, and by his sketchbook, placed open on the other. Fitzjames looked up, then, and seemed to wink at him, but James realized too late that the wink was meant for Francis, because he was once again beset by Francis’s teasing fingers running up his sides, sending James into spasms of laughter.

When James finally managed to escape, he found that he had, in his desperation, stumbled across the room toward Ann and blindly rolled onto the floor, curling himself around Fitzjames’s legs as some form of protection. Francis knelt above him, breathless with his own giggles; he had placed a hand on Ann’s knee for balance. Even without Francis’s mischievous interference, James still breathed heavily in and out. As he panted, he peered up at Ann, who was watching him from her perch on Fitzjames’s lap with mingled sympathy and glee. Fitzjames himself was evidently struggling to hide his amusement in his sleeve.

“You’re a trouble-maker too, aren’t you?” James Ross gasped at his other James. “Our fire-spark.” And James Fitzjames smiled bright enough to reach his dark, laughing eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Art (!) Notes** : The gorgeous image of Fitzjames’s sketch is the work of the incredibly talented @[indifferent-century](https://indifferent-century.tumblr.com), whose many lovely follow-up questions and spin-off thoughts from last week’s chapter inspired this entire scene, and who generously agreed to loan this beautiful work of art to my James Fitzjames. I’ve also indiscriminately stolen a huge number of these details from some fantastic conversations on the Rossier server about the potential of afterlife portraiture and this developing character dynamic; I’m afraid I was too invested to not simply write this story this week! To everyone from the server who was involved in those crowd-sourcing efforts, thank you, thank you, and I hope this does your ideas justice. 
> 
> **Historical Notes** : Thomas Abernethy, [has been proposed](https://annecoulmanross.tumblr.com/post/619671595094507520/the-terror-theory) by @[hegodamask](https://hegodamask.tumblr.com) as the man credited in _The Terror_ (2018) as the “translator” who appears alongside Sir James Clark Ross in the first and last episodes. The real Abernethy was very, very, cool, and did in fact die in 1860, so I’ve kidnapped him away as my art consultant. 
> 
> The portrait of Will Coningham that James Fitzjames mentions is [this one](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_Coningham_\(1815-1884\)_by_John_Linnel_\(1792-1882\).jpg). It’s actually a very lovely painting, but that’s certainly not more than the ghost of a smile. (For those of you keeping track at home, this fic is still the 1860s, so Will’s not going to be arriving for a while himself.) 
> 
> Given how much lap-sitting there was in this fic, the working title was “Friends are Furniture,” or, in the words of the great Roman writer Marcus Tullius Cicero from his treatise _On Friendship_ , “Friends are the best and finest furniture of life, as one might say.” ( _Amicos optimam et pulcherrimam vitae, ut ita dicam, supellectilem._ )


	5. Remember Me, Love, When I’m Reborn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which James Fitzjames spends a moment with Francis Crozier and James Clark Ross.

**Remember Me, Love, When I’m Reborn**

_James Fitzjames – 1863_

\+ 

James Fitzjames stood in the doorway to the parlor, which was aglow with lamp-light despite the lateness of the hour. It had been a long day – James had spent many hours under the sun’s eye, doing this and that aboard _Clio_ and sailing here and there as he wished, but he had found himself tired, at last, and come to the house to see about bed, and – perhaps – about Francis, who had declared himself weary that morning and had declined to go out in favor of spending some time, inside, with James Ross. 

It seemed to Fitzjames not beyond the reach of possibility to imagine that Francis – and Francis’s James dear – had not moved the entire day: for here they sat, both upon a large chaise tucked into the space of the parlor’s enormous bay window. Outside, a sliver of moonlight limned the cliff’s edge in silver. 

James hardly dared disturb them. Ross was apparently telling a story, the gist of which was lost on James, but Francis looked enthralled, and he sat, running a hand along a leg that Ross had tucked up indecorously upon the furniture, with his eyes trained on the James in front of him, unaware of the one who stood, silent, on the side. Ross was an animated storyteller, James noted, though he spoke only with his face, not with his hands, as James knew he often did himself. Ross’s gaze glanced across Francis and up across to the moonlit window, as he drew out his narrative. 

At length, Ross’s eyes passed across the room and settled upon James, where he stood in the doorway. “James!” Ross called. “My good man, come in!”

James allowed himself to be removed from the doorway but lingered near the entrance of the room, looking for where he might seat himself. He had nearly decided to pull a chair up beside the chaise – a little close, perhaps, a little improper, but there were no other places to sit within easy hearing range; he wouldn’t want to seem standoffish or make James Ross shout – when Ross spoke once more, interrupting his own story with a question. 

“Frank dear, do you have that–?” Ross gestured illegibly in Francis’s direction. 

Francis sighed indulgently. “You left it in the bedroom,” he said. “I suppose you’d like me to fetch it for you?” 

“Please,” Ross said, his eyes wide. 

Shaking his head, Francis stood up and straightened his waistcoat. “I’ll be just a minute,” he said to James, the barest hint of a smile showing the gap between his teeth. 

As he passed by, Francis brushed James’s hand with his own, warm and affectionate. 

When Francis had left, James realized that he was still standing in the middle of the room. He thought he might be a little dazed and hastily blamed the unusual amount of sun he’d had that day. 

“James,” Ross said, smiling. “Come sit.” He patted the place that Francis had vacated, and James found himself seated against the arm of the chaise, with Ross all of a sudden very close indeed. 

“Why do you call him Frank?” James asked, simply to ask anything at all – he was somewhat wary of allowing the silence to grow between the two of them, alone, without Francis present. All the same, he slipped off his house-slippers and pulled his legs up onto the chaise. 

Ross tilted his head. “Have done since we were young, ” he said. “Tom Blanky and I both called him Frank – and Ann picked it up from me, I suppose.” 

James made a low noise. “It still sounds strange,” James admitted. 

Looking intently at him, Ross asked, “Did you never have a nickname?” 

James bit at the inside of his cheek. “My brother used to call me ‘Jim,’ sometimes,” he said, at last. “And Dundy calls me ‘Jas,’ off and on.” 

“Neither suit you for all times, do they?” Ross asked, sympathetic. “I’ve only ever been ‘James,’ too, at heart.”

James shook his head, warming to Ross’s understanding. He shifted slightly on the chaise; he and Ross sat so close that, if he did not keep his legs where they were, he was likely to roll into Ross altogether. 

Ross smiled, his dark eyes flashing, “What about–”

At that moment, Francis stepped back into the room, a small cloth-bound book in hand, and Ross broke off, intent upon Francis – and his prize. As soon as Francis had reached the chaise, Ross swiftly stole the volume and held it up in the air. 

“Look at what your Mr. Bridgens found for us!” he announced, waving the book so that it was certainly impossible for James to see what it was. 

“He asked us to give it to you,” Francis said, sounding almost apologetic. He waived off James’s attempt to rise from his seat to return it to its rightful owner, and instead sat beside James’s feet. James restrained himself from straightening his legs directly into Francis’s lap, but Francis reached for them anyway, placing them over his thighs and curling a possessive thumb around James’s ankle. 

James Ross, then, cleared his throat and began to read aloud from a bookmarked page, still carefully hiding the book’s spine and cover from James’s view. 

_“Just as the minstrel sounds were stayed,  
A stranger climbed the steepy glade;  
His martial step, his stately mien,  
His hunting-suit of Lincoln green,  
His eagle glance, remembrance claims –  
‘Tis Snowdoun's Knight–”_

Ross paused dramatically and then raised his eyes to meet those of his captive audience: _“–‘tis James Fitz-James!”_

Grinning at the familiar words, James nodded. “Scott’s _Lady of the Lake,_ ” he said. 

“Ah, you already know it well,” Ross said. He sounded quite disappointed. 

James shook his head. “I haven’t heard it since I was a boy – my Uncle Robert used to read it to me, and he would always say that, ‘If one James Fitz-James could be a king in disguise, then who knows what feats another James Fitzjames could achieve?’” 

“Oh is _that_ who he is?” Ross said. “We hadn’t gotten that far.” 

James blanched. “I hadn’t meant to spoil–”

“Nonsense,” Francis said, with a note of amusement in his voice. “You’ve spared me the rest of that flowery poem, then.”

Ross breathed out a put-upon sigh. “If you won’t let me finish it–“

“–you’re perfectly welcome to finish it on your own, James dear,” Francis interrupted. 

“If you won’t let _us_ finish it,” Ross amended, “then at least tell us about the very end–” he turned to James– “Won’t you, James darling? What happens with Lady Ellen? After Fitz-James gave her the ring, I mean, I assumed that the thing would, well, make a further appearance.” 

“It does,” James said. “She realizes that when Fitz-James claimed that the ring had been a gift given to him by the King–”

“Wait, wait,” Ross said, ruffling back through the pages of the book. “I remember that part!” With a shout of victory, Ross settled on an page and read aloud:

_“He placed the golden circlet on,  
Paused—kissed her hand—and then was gone.  
The aged Minstrel stood aghast,  
So hastily Fitz-James shot past.”_

Francis snickered into his collar. James blushed. 

“Yes, well,” he said. “Lady Ellen realizes that the ring was the King’s all along, for Fitz-James has actually been _King_ James, wandering around in the guise of a knight errant. And he has already pardoned her father, so she asks him to spare her suitors, and then she marries one of them.”

“So she doesn’t marry the King, after all that?” Francis asked. 

“A shame,” Ross frowned. 

James bit his lip. “I never much cared about whom the Lady would marry, not when I was a boy,” he said. “My brother and I would play-act the hunts and the battles, and worry very little about weddings.”

“But Fitz-James was so dashing,” Ross said. “Very gallant.” 

“I agree,” Francis said. When James looked at him, he was smiling, but it was a sincere smile, not a laughing one, and his eyes were fixed on James’s face, though his hand had crept back toward Ross; their fingers were entwined. 

“I suppose–” James said. “I did always like the idea of the ring, as a promise. Fitz-James’s speech to Lady Ellen was one of my favorites.”

“Oh?” Francis lifted a brow.

“Show us,” Ross commanded, releasing Francis’s hand and placing it upon James’s knee. 

“If you wish,” James said, softly, and lifted the hand to his lips, and touched his mouth gently to Francis’s finger, in the place where a ring would sit if Francis wore one. He glanced back at Ross, who smiled benevolently at them. James let the dimly-remembered words tumble out of him: 

_“‘Seek thou the King without delay;  
This signet shall secure thy way:  
Claim thy suit, whate'er it be,  
As ransom of his pledge to me.’”_

When James finished reciting this, Francis was gazing back, an unreadable emotion lifting the corners of his eyes, but his lips retained a soft smile, and the moonlight and the lamplight mixed where they lit up the soft set of his shoulders. 

James felt Ross’s hand settle on his upper arm, and he startled only very slightly – but Francis’s smile broadened at the motion. Feeling suddenly brave, James placed their joined hands on top of Ross’s knee. With his other hand, Ross ran a comforting thumb across the back of James’s fingers. 

James turned his head and looked to James Ross – James dear – where he reclined lazily, his bright eyes watchful but clearly unconcerned. “May I, perhaps, steal him?” James asked. Ross nodded. 

“Time for bed, my love?” James asked Francis, who nodded in echo. Francis looked content now, and warm, and just a bit sleepy. James smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Historical Notes** : Sir Walter Scott’s narrative poem [_The Lady of the Lake_](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3011/3011-h/3011-h.htm) (1810) does, in fact, feature King James V of Scotland going under the assumed name of “James Fitz-James.” Given that it was published in the same year as our Fitzjames’s Aunt Louisa’s best-known poem (on the history of England), it seems entirely possible that young Fitzjames may also have read Scott’s poem as a child, as well. Scott’s poem was wildly influential, inspiring both great evil (e.g. the practice of cross burning in the Ku Klux Klan derives from a scene in the poem’s third canto) and great good (e.g. the surname “Douglass” was given to Frederick Douglass by his dear friend Nathan Johnson as a tribute to _The Lady of the Lake_ , which Johnson had been reading while hosting Douglass and his wife.) Yes, James Ross did read a large amount of this (lengthy) poem aloud to Francis while sitting on him, in bed, so that Francis couldn't escape. 
> 
> There’s a sad bit that didn’t make it into the final version of this story where Bridgens’s discovery that Scott’s _Lady_ might be relevant to his Captain Fitzjames is accompanied by a callback to Bridgens’s line “There will be poems.” Don’t think about that too much. 
> 
> On a happier note, Bridgens is VERY much enjoying the afterlife library, and he’d like you all to know that. The things poor Peglar has to do to draw Bridgens’s attention away from the books….


	6. She Laughs Like You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Francis Crozier spends a peaceful morning with Lady Ann Ross.

**She Laughs Like You**

_Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier – 1864_

+

The early morning light glowed golden over the pier where Ann and Francis sat, watching James Clark Ross as he clambered around the rigging of _Erebus,_ arguing all the while with an effortlessly charming Graham Gore. 

Francis had been dragged rather early from bed for this adventure, but James had insisted – _you know Graham best, Frank,_ he’d said, _you trained him, so come tell him he’s wrong about how to get the best speed out of my old girl under these conditions._ Francis was sure he didn’t care about this debate – was sure he’d rather have curled back up beside James darling and gone back to sleep, but Ann had promised hot cocoa and pastry and company, while James dear nit-picked to his satisfaction, so Francis had ultimately found himself persuaded. 

He and Ann had laid out their impromptu picnic on the planking of the pier, and seated themselves nearby on a warm fur; it was almost comfortable. 

“For you,” Ann said, now, holding out a cup of cocoa freshly poured from a carefully-insulated flask. 

Something about the image, the scene... no, the _words_ – Francis had been here before. 

A moment of confusion, and then Francis realized that he was being reminded of a misty morning in the autumn of 1844, when Francis had been preparing for his trip abroad. Though he’d only been visiting the Rosses for a few short weeks, while James was anxiously awaiting the birth of his firstborn, the house at Blackheath had begun to feel cramped, and Francis knew himself to be the cause: there was no room for his black mood, his melancholy, his disappointments – not in a household with two newlyweds, and, now, a brand new baby. So Francis was already making arrangements to disappear – to lose himself in some other country where he wouldn’t be a bother to James, and to over-gracious Ann. 

Just days before he was to depart, Francis sat, attempting to write a letter requesting advisement on a place he might stay in Florence once he made his way there at the end of December. 

At a knock on the half-open door, however, Francis had turned. Ann had been standing – or rather leaning – against the doorway, with her little one curled, asleep, in one arm, and her other hand behind her back. 

“Christ, should you be up?” Francis asked, panicked. Ann hadn’t been feeling well, he knew, and it was only days since the baby had arrived – how long ought a woman to stay abed, after? Certainly longer than this. Francis fretted. 

But Ann, despite the dark circles under her eyes, had brushed off the concern entirely. 

“For you,” Ann had said and handed him a parcel, messily wrapped in floral paper. “Happy birthday, my dear Frank.”

“But–” Francis began. It wasn’t his birthday. Ann must know this? His birthday had passed in August with little fanfare, as Francis preferred – he and James had gone to a lecture on magnetism and walked the park after. Francis counted it among his favorite birthdays, honestly. Had James not known….? 

Francis had opened his mouth in confusion, and he’d meant to start with “kind, dear Ann,” but somewhere along the way his brain had changed tracks and had begun to ask “I thought that James knew my birthday was–” instead, and the resultant train collision led Francis, mortifyingly, to utter the nonsense words “kind dear thot.” 

Francis froze in horror. 

But Ann had only laughed and then smothered her laughter when the as-yet-unnamed little one had begun to squirm, and, somehow, the nickname had stuck. 

It was one of the first times he had felt comfortable around Ann, Francis thought. He’d been overwhelmed by a maelstrom of concerns when James dear had told him about the impossibly lovely girl he’d met, with the sea-blue eyes and the brilliant generosity of spirit. When Francis had finally met her, Ann was everything James had said: young and bright and curious about James’s passions. It had made Francis’s heart sink – she was so obviously James’s other half. He’d stepped delicately around her for years, until it became a habit – if he’d done anything to risk James’s future with her, he knew, James would never have been able to forgive him. 

Now, Francis realized, Ann was looking at him strangely. She was still holding out the cup of cocoa, a curl of heat rising from the drink into the cold morning air. Francis hastily took it from her, and took a sip, almost burning the roof of his mouth in the process. Ann watched him as he breathed out and winced slightly. 

“Dear, are you alright?” Ann asked. 

Francis wrapped his fingers around the china cup, where the heat was more welcome. “Yes – sorry, I was just remembering,” he said, and spooled out the story, adding in his confusions about Ann’s condition and the matter of the birthday, neither of which he’d voiced at the time. 

“God, Frank, do you mean to tell me that James got your birthday wrong?” Ann said. 

Francis shrugged. “I never much liked celebrating it anyway.” 

Ann made a slightly strangled noise. “Still! I wish you’d told us. I rather think James published that you were born in September…” Her horror turned to startled laughter.

“Did you never tell James about the story behind all that?” Francis asked, grinning. “He never seemed to question it when I asked after ‘Thot’ in my letters.”

Ann was laughing so hard there were tears streaming from her eyes. “Never,” she said, shaking her head. Francis drew her close, not sure if he was comforting the crying or making her laugh harder, but Ann settled against his shoulder, and smiled up at him, which set her off again, and Francis, too, was lost once more. 

“Kind dear thot,” he whispered against her dark hair, and Ann giggled, warm in his arms as they both watched James dash about aboard his ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author’s Notes:** I’m sorry, apparently my Francis is literally incapable of not having flashbacks when it’s his turn to have the POV. 
> 
> **Historical Notes:** There’s a whole debate over when Francis’s birthday was, largely because James Clark Ross seems to be wrong about it if you believe that he wrote (or at least fact checked) [certain things](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GGG8ZucY0oJDFcFV2Nf2dYWmImHxS8it/view?usp=sharing) published about Crozier. Babe, he’s your best friend – how do you not _know?_ But yes, one of the possible proposed dates (17 September 1796) would put Crozier’s birthday only days after James C. Ross Jr’s (15 September 1844). I don’t have many links to sources on this – beyond this short note by [Campbell 2008](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dtSytKoSX0nQaXLR44jT5y4UPd2lWobL/view?usp=sharing) about the problem – because it’s always confused the hell out of me, but please do feel free to debate in the comments if that makes you happy – I’m agnostic about the whole thing. I just referenced it here because I needed to set up a joke for Ann to laugh at! Furthermore, it’s deeply improbable that Crozier was at Blackheath so soon before leaving for the continent; based on his letters (and especially the fact that he didn’t learn baby James’s name for like, months and months), Crozier seems to have stayed elsewhere in England in 1844, not even in London. I got attached to this idea, though, and didn’t want to let go.


	7. Eyes Always Seeking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lady Ann Ross makes a plan and enjoys its effects.

**Eyes Always Seeking**

_Ann Coulman Ross – 1865_

+

Ann did not sail terribly often, herself. 

Certainly, she liked it well enough – the experience of James dear’s _Erebus_ cutting through the waves, or James darling’s quick little _Clio_ darting around the rocks. Ann would always place herself as close to the bow as whichever captain would allow, that she might feel the wind against her face and forget the bulk of the ship behind her and look out, instead, at the sea and the shore and the sky. 

Today, they were all of them aboard a new vessel that had recently appeared in harbor – just as lost or dismantled ships often did. It was a novelty to be at sea, the four of them, and none a captain: just passengers enjoying the view from the tall steam-ship nudging peacefully away from the pier. 

Though most of the other passengers had remained below, admiring the ship’s interior and the view from her grand windows – for the day was blustery and misty, still – Ann slipped away from James dear and Francis at the earliest opportunity to go walk the decks. “Go on ahead,” Francis had said to her with a smile. “We’ll catch up.” So Ann stepped out into the wind, pulling her warm cloak tightly around her. 

The bow of the ship was blessedly unoccupied, so Ann had already made her way half-way there before seeing that James – James darling, James Fitzjames – had apparently had much the same intention. Leaning up against the ship’s side, he made almost too perfect a silhouette, in his exquisitely tailored coat and with his elegant curled hair resisting the pulling fingers of the wind by some miracle or another. 

Ann recalled how she had spoken with her husband no more than a day or so after his own arrival, about this man standing before her. 

“What do you think of Francis’s Fitzjames?” she’d asked while they were lying still abed on a lazy morning. 

Her James had pulled her a little closer, his hands finding her hips, and Ann had curled into his embrace, humming happily. “He’s certainly a beautiful man,” James had admitted, “though that’s not news,” and Ann had agreed with a short kiss to James’s throat. 

“They seem very good for each other,” James had added. “I’d not expected that.” 

Ann smiled. “They are,” she agreed. “Though I’d heard enough of Fitzjames’s pining that I’m sure it’s less of a surprise to me that he’s so happy now.” 

“I’m just glad that he makes Francis happy,” James had said, some fretful memory furrowing his brow. Ann wished she knew what it was – there was a time when she could tell just from the shape of his frown, but she wasn’t as sure anymore. 

“He has been, at that,” Ann said. “It is alright with you, dearest, yes? The two of them?” She’d suspected James could manage to share – and had told as much to Francis – but it had been hard to know for certain without James dear there, himself. It had been hard to be without him. 

“Of course,” James had said, as though the thought of objecting had never even occurred to him. “Of course,” he repeated, and lifted a hand to trace through a lock of Ann’s hair. Ann smiled into his collar. 

“Did you– do you–” James had asked very carefully, then. “Have you been with them, ever?” 

An even deeper memory nudged at Ann, the remembrance of James whispering, very late and very deep in his cups, one dark night before either of them had died, how he’d imagined Ann and Francis together, once. _The two of you – beautiful. Both here with me, safe._ An explanation, of sorts – one that Ann hadn’t known to seek. Ann suspected that her husband didn’t remember saying it, but she hadn’t forgotten the wistfulness in his voice, the regret for something that could never be. They’d already thought Francis gone, lost – and they hadn’t been entirely wrong. 

“No, I haven’t,” Ann had said, honestly and earnestly. “He and Francis – they needed that from each other. I wouldn’t have interfered.” 

“And now?” 

Ann had considered this, pressing her cheek to her husband’s chest to feel his heartbeat there. “Perhaps,” she said. “If it’s something you all would like, dearheart, I’d not object.” It was true enough – Ann was so grateful to have her own James here, with her, at last; here, where she could bury her hands in his hair and watch his beautiful dark eyes as he watched her; here, where she could watch him gasp beneath Francis, so obviously and achingly happy to have his oldest friend back in his arms; so Ann hadn’t put much thought to what exactly would come of her own friendship with Francis and, in particular, of her relationship with James. But she loved them all – in what way, exactly, Ann wasn’t fully certain, but it was early days yet. 

That question had shifted into an answer or two over time, as watching James Fitzjames settle into himself – and into his relationship with Francis – calmed him, made him into someone more confident. A real confidence, not the veneer Ann had glimpsed in life, so long ago. She’d talked it over with her dearest James, how very much they both admired the beauty that Fitzjames was becoming in his well-earned happiness. 

And now. 

There was something breathtaking about him now. Standing proud on the ship’s deck, immovable even by the wind. 

“Hullo, darling,” Ann said. 

James turned and smiled back at her, and the movement allowed a wind-eddy to ruffle the one perfect ringlet that fell over his forehead, until he brushed it back. “Hullo,” he said. “Lovely out here, isn’t it?”

“Wonderful – so peaceful,” Ann agreed, just in time for the sea to call her on her hubris: a spray of water from the ship’s wake cast itself high in the air and scattered droplets over James’s face. But James only laughed and blinked through the sea-water and lifted the back of his hand to his mouth. 

Bullying her way in between the ship’s side and James, Ann looked up into his face, lovely even with the saltwater drops that ran down from his brow to his chin. This James was taller than hers; Ann wasn’t used to the difference of height, since she could kiss her husband without lifting up on her toes or even raising her mouth. 

Ann removed one of her gloves and brushed the salt-spray from James’s cheek, allowing her hand to linger over his soft skin even after it was dry. A lovely rush of color flooded over James’s high cheekbones, and Ann stepped close in order to better appreciate the view, until she was practically leaning into James’s chest. 

Though it had been exactly what she intended, Ann was still pleasantly surprised when James wrapped his arms around her. From there, it was a move of only inches for Ann to shift them so that she might catch his lips in a soft kiss and guide James to part his lips for her. Ann felt James’s hands gently gripping the back of her dress, and rewarded him with a bite to his upper lip that made him hum low in his throat and smile against her mouth. 

Ann heard a shifting of footsteps nearby, and wasn’t much bothered, but James pulled away from the kiss abruptly. 

Francis and his James dear had finally followed them out into the mist, which was breaking up into sunlight around them at last, and James had climbed up onto the gunwale so that he might be tall enough rest his chin on Francis’s shoulder; the two of them were watching Ann and James with easy contentment. 

“Sir–” James gasped. “Sir James, I’m sorry–”

But Ann’s dearest husband smiled as she’d known he would. “Whatever for?” 

“I–” James was obviously overcome. “I– Francis?” 

“What is it, darling?” Francis asked distractedly, trying to disentangle James dear’s creeping fingers from seeking warmth in his coat pockets without it sending either of them tumbling over the ship’s side. He was not succeeding. 

With a huff at his love’s uselessness in the matter, James darling turned back to Ann. As he saw the grin that Ann knew was spreading across her face, however, something of understanding seeped into James’s eyes. 

“You knew I’d do that, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question. 

Ann nodded, and the James in her arms allowed himself a wry smile. 

“Do it again?” Ann asked. 

James bit his lip. “You’re very certain that’s alright?” he asked. 

“James darling,” Ann said, and tilted her face up until she could feel James’s breath against her lips again. “Do you really think we ought to let those two have all the fun?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author’s Notes:** I very much stole a line of dialogue from @[indifferent-century](https://indifferent-century.tumblr.com) – that original “Oh no, oh no I’m so sorry. Sir James, I–” of Fitz’s has been living in my head rent free for nearly a month. 
> 
> **Historical Notes:** This takes place on the Hellenic Navy Steamer the _Othon_ (1838-1862), later renamed the _Athinai_ (1862-1864), which was decommissioned shortly before 1865, though I can’t confirm for certain that she was dismantled after that. The boat’s original name derives from King Otto, whom James Fitzjames [notably](https://annecoulmanross.tumblr.com/post/617228674005123072/expeditionpaper-i-got-up-a-weekly-newspaper-on) helped escort to his throne in Greece in 1832-1833.


	8. When You Move I’m Moved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone goes to a dance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I took a week off for the [Rossier Exchange 2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Rossier_Exchange_2020) but I am now back to providing your weekly dose of Rossierfitzann, refreshed by the existence of so many beautiful new Rossier fics! 
> 
> Recommended listening for this chapter is “By Way of Sorrow” by Cry Cry Cry – it’s on the [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0JvdenpdvDI6MqsUPX27PM?si=Ck2l81cZR5mzvRUqSLj-qA) for this fic, in fact. Despite that title, this is a fluffy chapter, I promise.

**When You Move I’m Moved**

_James Fitzjames – 1865_

+

Though it did not happen often, those who lived in the grand house on the cliff sometimes – _occasionally_ – held dances.

To be completely honest, James Fitzjames thought, as he looked out upon the dancers before him, there may have been more balls and fêtes and carnivals held out upon the night-ice than those that happened here at the house, where many people sought rest and quiet. And tonight’s affair was indeed sedate, compared to those dances James had experienced in the past, in life: the large hall toward the back of the house had been carefully candlelit and decorated fit for a Society event, certainly, but the musicians were few in number and the music they played was slow and stately. Most of the couples on the dance-floor moved slowly also, seeming to enjoy a moment to speak quietly with their partner and sway in each other’s arms.

Sir James Clark Ross, however, was the exception. He and Ann spun around the edge of the room by the windows, keeping up a good tempo and smiling at each other over some private jest.

As they approached the place where James and Francis stood, Ross led his wife through one last twirl, until she was giggling breathlessly and stumbling out of his arms and into Francis’s, seeking some respite.

“A menace, you are,” Francis joked at Ross, his eyes smiling at Ross over Ann’s curls.

Ross placed a gentle hand on Ann’s shoulder and she spun to grace him with a chaste kiss before turning back to Francis, still shaking with laughter. “I thought you’d tired him out, my dear Frank,” Ann gasped at Francis.

“Never,” Ross said; his grin was wolfish.

“Go find someone else to dizzy,” Francis scoffed, all good cheer.

James watched all this with warm puzzlement. Though the rest of the room seemed bothered not at all by their display, James couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen such playfulness at a formal dance like this one. Of course James had once been irrepressibly mischievous himself, whatever the setting – the sheer number of times it had gotten him into trouble as a mid and even as a lieutenant, James couldn’t possibly count – but he’d taught himself to keep such behavior in check when the dangers of the Arctic ice had required him to be a steady captain first and foremost, and James had never quite let go of those worries, it seemed. Still, he had begun to realize that his brittle decorum had little place here. If no one else minded their laughter and joy, why should James feel so conscious of it?

A gentle touch to James’s arm brought him back to present company.

James Ross stood before him now. “Will you do me the honor?” Ross asked, holding his hand out courteously toward James.

Not very long ago, this would have shocked James. But after a few years of reassurance, and a kiss from Ann – and more than a few kisses from Francis – the surprise James felt was a mild one, and he glanced only briefly to confirm that Francis and Ann seemed content before he placed his hand in Ross’s. The man’s grip was firm but gentle, and James was very aware of the contact, the warmth of Ross’s skin beneath his glove.

Perhaps he had, in fact, tired himself out along with Ann, or perhaps he had sensed James’s subtle reservations, for Ross now kept himself to a more reasonable rhythm as he led James to the edge of the dance-floor. They slipped into a waltz that, though it resulted in Ross’s other hand being placed, warm and meaningful, on James’s waist, allowed them space and breath to speak as they danced, if either wished.

At first, there was a companionable silence. James watched Ross’s eyes flit across the room, occasionally catching on the place where Francis and Ann stood together, carefully tucked into the shadows, as Francis so often was. Ross’s face softened into a fond smile when he looked their way, and on the next pass, James saw over Ross’s shoulder that Francis was speaking with a furrowed line of concern darkening his brow – not enough for it to cause either of them to worry, but enough to tell that Francis was, again, complaining of something. Some small matter, surely. The love and care in Ross’s own face was enough to reassure James of that – and to fill him with a comfortable curiosity that he saw no reason not to indulge.

“How did you know that you felt that way about him?” James asked, as they turned away once again. “About Francis?”

Ross looked at him thoughtfully. “I suppose,” he said, after a moment, “it started when he and I were boys – we first met as midshipmen, you know.”

James nodded. “That long ago?”

“For me, at least,” Ross admitted. “Though I don’t know if I knew that was what it was at the time. But we were fast friends from the first.”

James bit his lip, wondering how much he could ask. “When– was there a moment when you were certain?”

“There was one winter,” Ross said, “when we were north together – later, on the Cove – and it had been so bitterly cold. I’d gotten so chilled that Francis stayed with me to keep me warm. I awoke in the night, and I could have sworn I heard him say ‘mine, my James,’ though I could never be sure I hadn’t dreamed it into existence, or misunderstood somehow. But I realized I wanted that ‘mine’ to be for me, to be ‘my James’ to him, to belong to Francis.”

James nodded in understanding. “I– I know something of the feeling,” he said, and it earned him an encouraging smile.

“And you?” Ross asked, managing to burden the words with something like an invitation – for James to talk, certainly, but perhaps more. They’d drawn closer as they danced, the frame of Ross’s arms collapsing in as his hand shifted toward the small of James’s back.

“I– well, I had some similar feelings when Francis and I kept each other warm once we’d left the ships,” James said. It hurt less and less to talk of those last painful years. “We would sleep much the same way, some nights. But once–”

Ross tilted his head at James’s pause. “You can tell me,” he said.

“We danced.”

James said no more, though the memories of it bloomed in the back of his mind – one dark night at Terror Camp, just before everything had gone horribly wrong, when the men still sang around the fire at night and their songs filtered through to the command tent where he and Francis been poring over charts, and Francis had offered James a wry grin and an outstretched hand and had asked, _May I?_ before he spun James into a dance as though the men’s singing had been the music for a quadrille. And James had laughed as Francis had meant him to, and hid the fact that the movement made his ribs burn and his legs weak and his head spin, for it was worth it for Francis’s joy and playfulness, for this one chance to be close to Francis, who James had realized, too late, was a man worth loving.

That it had been one of only a few bright memories from that time, James did not say aloud; still, Ross did not appear to need to be told, for he looked very softly up at James, and led them smoothly through each step of the dance as though each motion were a promise. It was a very different sort of the thing from the one living dance James had experienced with Francis – there was no stumbling over shale, no worry over whether his legs would hold him up – but James felt a similar warmth in his chest, now, and a sudden desire to be closer, close though he already was to James Ross.

All too soon, the waltz came to a close, and Ross led the both of them back toward Ann and Francis’s corner. Still, when they arrived, Ross made no move to encourage James to release his gentle hold of Ross’s leading arm; in fact, he placed one of his hands over James’s own with a sly smile.

“Are you alright, James?” Ann asked, taking James’s free hand in both of her own.

James smiled at her, comforted. “Perfectly.”

“He can be a good dancer when he’s not too energetic,” Ann said conspiratorially, a wicked grin flashing across her features as she looked briefly at her husband, then back at James. “I’m glad you had a good time, my darling.”

Ross broke in. “You are, aren’t you?” His eyes were intent – piercing in a way that made James feel wonderfully seen. “Our darling.”

James nodded. “Happily, Sir James, I am.”

“Please,” Ross said, looking at him sternly.

“My captain,” James said, with a reverent nod of his head that was only half a jest.

Ross snorted and shook his head.

“James dear?” James offered, smiling himself now.

Ann interrupted. “Already Francis’s.”

The Francis in question hid a laugh in Ann’s hair.

James looked to Ross – Sir James, James dear – once more.

“My James?” he said – a question. And James Ross nodded his affirmation, with a brilliant smile all for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Art (!) Notes:** The beautiful embedded art piece was drawn by the inimitable @[jamesclarkross](https://jamesclarkross.tumblr.com) after a discussion around one of my other prompts for the Rossier exchange: “bed-sharing.” There’s also a beautiful Francis & James Ross dancing image that James drew for the wonderful exchange fic [_your hands on my waist_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26531431) aka THE Rossier dancing fic, which very much also inspired this chapter – you can see & reblog the lovely dancing sketch [here](https://jamesclarkross.tumblr.com/post/629801579604852736/their-last-dance-doesnt-feel-like-their-last).


	9. Half as Beautiful Too

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which James Clark Ross has written a love-letter.

**Half as Beautiful Too**

_James Clark Ross – 1867_

+

James Ross yawned as he climbed the stairs to the room where he slept most nights. Sometimes with Ann by his side, sometimes with Francis. Sometimes – like that first night – beside the both of them.

Tonight, he wasn’t entirely sure whom he might find in the bed-chamber, perhaps already asleep; James had been out on the water all day, and it was quite late now. As he turned the last corner and drew close to the room in question, James saw that the door was slightly ajar and a thin line of candlelight was spilling out onto the floor of the hallway.

James made an effort to keep his steps quiet, as he crept closer.

When he was only a few feet away, James could at last hear quiet voices speaking from within the room. The first few words he caught were muffled, but very much known to him already – he’d written them to Ann just the previous day, after all. Yet the voice that spoke them aloud was not the one he’d expected, not Ann herself, but softer and deeper and familiar and Irish:

“My own dearest Anne, when I look up at the stars in that great dark field above, I am reminded of how ~~great~~ immense a blessing you are ~~in my life~~ ~~every day that I~~ in every way imaginable to me. I fear it may be idolatry, my dear love, yet I cannot help but think that the constellations brilliant as they are cannot compare to your own guiding light which leads me ever onwards and they are but half as beautiful too…”

A while back, not so long after James’s death, Ann had asked James to write letters to her. James had at first asked why Ann would want letters from him, when James had no plans to leave her sight for more than a day, and Ann had demurred, had said that she would get along fine without, that it had been nothing more than a passing fancy. And so, ignoring this, James had written the first letter not knowing what it was his wife sought from him – he found it much harder to write a letter when there was no news that his beloved Ann didn’t already know. He scribbled through some descriptions of the things he had done that day – a tea he’d taken with some old Arctic veterans, a conversation he’d had with James darling’s friend Le Vesconte, a poem he’d read that reminded him of Ann – and he’d left the tangle of words on her pillow for her to find in the evening.

So when Ann had come to him that night with the letter in her hand and a soft smile on her face and had draped her arms around his shoulders to kiss him, James had confessed that he might need more guidance in the future to keep her happy. In response, Ann had finally settled in his lap and told him that she’d missed his letters. Missed the way James wrote of the things he saw while sailing, missed the way James could put to paper the most remarkable flirtations that made Ann laugh as much as they made her blush, sometimes. Missed having something of James to keep with her always, even if he was right there beside her more often than not, now.

After that, James wrote to his wife very often indeed.

He’d thought that Ann would read these letters to herself; he knew she gathered them up in a wooden box, the very image of one she’d had at Aston Abbotts, in which she’d once stored away letters from many loved ones: from James, but also from Francis, from Ann’s dear departed mother, even from young James, their son, when he’d first gone away to school. Ann, in life, would only ever read those letters with James, and even then, only some of them – the ones from Francis, from young James. It hadn’t crossed James’s mind that she might share these new letters with anyone else, let alone ask them to be read aloud to her.

But this was Francis – Francis’s voice, Francis reading what James had written; James would never ever begrudge him that. In fact, it pulled at something inside James, made him feel curious and strange and joyful.

At last, James allowed himself to glance into the room. As he’d assumed, Ann and Francis were sitting together in bed. Ann had built herself a fortress of pillows, as she was wont to do, and lay back against them as though reclining on a particularly luxurious throne. An embroidery hoop sat on the pillow beside her, abandoned. Francis himself lay with his head in her lap, which James had not foreseen, but which made his heart seem tender and bruised in his chest, as though it needed to be handled gently.

James pushed the door open as quietly as he could, and let himself in. It was almost too perfect to interrupt, James thought, but he couldn’t last on merely a glimpse – he needed to see every detail. The glow of the candlelight on Ann’s smiling face, James’s own stumbling words made smooth and eloquent and _good_ by Francis’s lovely, rich voice. It didn’t escape James’s notice that Frank read out every single word, even the crossed-out ones.

Leaning against the doorpost, James watched as Ann lifted her eyes to seek out the source of the shadow in the doorway. Seeing him, she smiled softly. As Francis read on, undisturbed, James held Ann’s gaze. Her eyes were just as beautifully blue as they’d been the day James had met her.

Francis’s voice slowed in that way that meant he was coming to the end of a phrase, as he read aloud, “… as the starlight upon your face. So I pray that you should lead me as true as He has done, through the dark waters, for you have ever been able to make your dear love known to me.”

Thus finished, Francis looked up to Ann, and her gaze led him to James, standing still in the doorway.

“Been listening there long?” Francis said, wry. His lips curved into a smile, and he beckoned James over to the bed.

Ann moved her embroidery out of the way for James to lie next to her, and Francis rearranged himself to give them room. With a happy sigh, James fell boneless upon the coverlet, comforted that he could feel Ann’s sleepy warmth at his side, and Francis’s gentle hand on his knee.

“I like hearing you read,” he said to Francis, who merely nodded and pressed a kiss to James’s fingers where they lay atop his own.

Ann hummed, happy. “I’d thought you might,” she said. “He’s so very good at it, and your letters call to be heard and listened to, especially ones like this.”

At this, Francis blushed.

James lifted his hand to caress that blush, tracing the arch of Francis's cheek with his thumb. "Thank you, my dear Frank," James said, unable to stop himself from smiling. He then curled in a little closer against Ann’s side.

“And thank you,” James murmured, “my north star." He pressed his mouth to Ann’s cheek, right where the crease of the pillow had left a faint pink line that was already fading under James’s lips, as Ann leaned into his kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author’s Notes:** I swear I intended this last nickname for Anne before I read Henry’s spectacular story [_Cold is the Arctic sea, far are your arms from me,_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26518969) in which James Ross reminds himself that “he still had a star to steer by: Anne had taken his hand and said, soft, ‘I wish he’d stayed longer.’” (At which point, when reading that, I broke into tears.) The idea of Ann(e) as James’s north star, his guiding light, makes me so, so soft. If you somehow haven’t yet, you are now obliged to drop everything you’re doing and read Henry’s fic. 
> 
> **History Notes:** Yes, James spelled Ann’s name with an ‘e,’ which is why it’s spelled that way in the letter Francis is reading. *nudges the great Ann(e) Coulman Ross spelling debate 2k20 at you and then leaves without answering anything at all* (I’ve retained the ‘Ann’ spelling for the main text of this fic not because I think it’s right necessarily, but because I like to rotate between spellings; that being said, ‘Ann’ is how it’s spelled on her gravestone which is fairly interesting evidence.)
> 
> The phrasing and word choice of James’s letters is based upon real letters by James Clark Ross, which have been generously transcribed by Henry @[handfuloftime](https://handfuloftime.tumblr.com/) – my efforts may be overwrought in comparison but I’ve done my best. (In this case “my best” means “chock full of far too many Hozier references.”) 
> 
> The replica letter is my own work, and the handwriting is more an evocation of Ross's than an imitation, though I have tried to use some of his letter-forms where they differ from my own.


	10. Homestretch of the Hard Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the endearment "dearest" is debated.

**Homestretch of the Hard Times**

_Ann Coulman Ross – 1869_

+

“Dearest, would you pass me the–?” Francis asked from where he sat with his back against the frame of the hearth, gesturing vaguely with his hand in the absence of whatever word it was he was seeking. The evening had spooled into smoke and tale-telling, by this point, and the progression of time had begun pacing aimlessly toward comfortable silence. 

Already cozily settled with her feet on James darling’s lap, Ann allowed herself to ignore Francis’s request, which was, after all, clearly meant for her husband, who was just now settling himself on the rug by the fire. Ann closed her eyes sleepily. 

“Dearest?” Francis said again. 

Ann opened her eyes. Francis’s hand remained aloft in the air, but now he was pointing toward the leg of the chaise. Blinking, Ann peered down and saw that the fire-poker remained where she had leaned it close-to-hand, minutes or perhaps hours ago. 

Wordlessly, she lifted the poker and passed it – handle first – to Francis, who thanked her with a smile and settled back beside James dear to tend the fire. 

Ann felt a yawn building up in her chest, and almost brought her hand up to politely cover her mouth before she saw, at the last minute, that the skin of her palm was marked with ash and soot from the poker. 

“Give it here.” 

Looking up, Ann saw that James darling held out one hand in offering. When she placed her hand in his, palm up, he revealed a handkerchief tucked in his other hand and – before Ann could blink – her palm was clean once more. 

“Thank you, darling,” Ann said, and yawned once more. James darling rubbed her ankle-bone reassuringly, as he spirited the sooty handkerchief away once more. 

Ann hummed. “Wait…” she mused, tired thoughts finally catching up with her. “Francis dear?” 

Francis, who had been running his fingers across James dear’s thigh, looked up peaceably and made a soft sound of curiosity. 

Ann tilted her head. “I thought James dear was ‘dearest,’” she explained. 

At this, the James dear in question stirred. “But I call _you_ ‘dearest,’” he objected, curling up closer against Francis but reaching his hand out toward Ann in the same motion. It had been almost cold that evening, and the chaise was pulled closer to the fire than usual, so Ann could reach out as well and brush her husband’s fingers without moving from where she sat. 

“So do I, though, love,” she answered. 

Francis shifted so that James might sit more comfortably against his shoulder. “I’m afraid I’m with James dear on this one,” he said. “I’ve been hearing him call you ‘dearest’ since the Antarctic, and it’s rather stuck.” 

Ann turned, then, to the man absently rubbing circles over her heel. “What do you think, James darling?” she asked. 

“Oh?” James replied. “Oh, I’d assumed he’d meant your James dear as well.” 

“See?” Ann said, twisting back to face her husband. 

“But that leaves us with a tie, my light,” Francis complained weakly to his own James at the same moment, though James darling merely laughed gently and pressed Ann’s ankle in solidarity. 

More awake now, Ann accepted a last caress from James darling and then slipped down from the chaise. Gathering her skirts, she lay atop her husband’s legs – and, to his credit, he only made a single pained noise of protest before assisting her into a better position where he could stroke her hair and she could glare up at him. 

“If we have a tie, my dear,” Ann continued. “I’ll simply need to persuade you to change your position.” It was rather difficult to be commanding when she was lying so comfortably in her husband’s lap, with his fingers gently plaiting through her curls, but it was a challenge Ann took up readily. 

“Oh I don’t think that’s likely,” Francis said, voice full of humor. “Too stubborn by half.” 

“I’d very much like to see you try to convince me,” James added. His smile was rakish and ever-so-slightly smug. 

Ann set her brows. “I’ve used ‘dearest’ longer.” A first volley. 

“Can’t be proven,” James smirked. 

The next salvo. “You and Francis have too many nicknames for me already.” 

“I don’t think endearments are subject to the standard laws of economics, my dear love. Surplus of supply does not negate demand for more.” 

Ann bit her lip and straightened up. Time for a bombardment. 

“You ought to let us use ‘dearest’ for you alone,” Ann insisted, “for I will be sad if you don’t.”

James placed a hand upon her back and drew her closer. “See, I know this to be a trick–” he began, but he was silenced by Ann’s hand upon his cheek. 

“You wouldn’t want to disappoint me,” Ann continued, running her fingers up into James’s curls. He gasped and leaned into her hand. 

“I wouldn’t,” James agreed, now sounding very slightly dazed. 

Very very carefully, then, she let her lips rest upon James’s jaw, too distant and too unmoving to be called a kiss, but close enough that James would feel the warmth of her breath. A practiced effort. 

“Won’t you let me have what I want, James?” she whispered. 

“Alright, alright, I yield!” James cried. 

Smiling, Ann rewarded James for his surrender with several eager kisses – first to his jaw and then to his lips – and then sat back beside him again, her arms around his shoulders. “My dearest James,” she said, soft, “you must know by now that I will win every time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author’s Note:** See, this fic has actually been the “secret fluff sequel where these four bicker over who gets what pet names, and to everyone’s surprise, it’s not the James vs. James issue that causes the most problems (Francis has already solved that with ‘James dear’ and ‘James darling’ after all), but rather the dearest vs. dearest debate” that I mentioned in the end notes of _Another Life_ all along! If you haven’t yet noticed, there’s a pattern in the last line of every chapter of this current story…


	11. Our Gentle Sin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we see a brief glimpse of an evening from the perspective of James Clark Ross.

**Our Gentle Sin**

_James Clark Ross – 1870_

+

Over the years – _years? surely it had been years; likely many of them_ – since James Clark Ross had found himself here in this after-place, he had slipped slowly, gently, into this unorthodox – yet lovely – arrangement. 

Dimly, James could remember the anxiety of his arrival, the fear that this was all a dream, insubstantial as any nightmare he’d ever had, terrifying for the perfect vision it presented that – he feared – could be torn away from him at any moment. And, then, after he’d broken down and kissed Francis for the first time – _once, twice, then a third time; that last kiss right here in this very room, on the bed before him_ – the worry that this too would ruin him, that Francis would regret it, that James’s love for Francis would lose him Ann, whom James loved no less dearly. But to James’s astonishment and delight none of these nightmares had come to pass. 

Instead the world – _the universe? fate? the Lord?_ – had seen fit to give him this. This place. This heaven, in which James had first awoken in Francis’s strong arms, with Ann steady at his back. James recalled the long-ago shock of Ann telling him to kiss Francis, of realizing that these intimacies could be permitted – shared even. The absolute, wonderful, impossible generosity of Ann’s spirit, from the very first. 

It was Ann’s calm, unrelenting care and liberality that had helped James open up his heart when Francis had first told him about James Fitzjames – not much later, that very same morning. 

_I love him,_ Francis had explained. _I came to love him when we were alive – if you could call the horrors we faced together “living” – and then I lost him, and now that I’ve found him again I would not be parted from him, James dear. I thought – I’d hoped you might come to accept this. It does not mean I love you any less – I could never._

It had not occurred to James that another man might capture Francis’s attentions in this way. But Francis’s final words – _it does not mean I love you any less; I could never_ – found so perfect a match in James’s own heart, a flawless mirror of how James felt about both Francis and Ann, that he had not had space for even the smallest fragment of jealousy. 

So he had kissed Francis’s lips and promised – if only to himself, then – to hold to his faith in Francis, to trust that the four of them could come to know each other in whatever messy way seemed best. _I understand,_ he had told Francis then. _I understand as much as I think I can without seeing the shape of it all; give me time to look and confirm that you are indeed loved by this man, and I will continue to try to understand it._

It had proven a rewarding risk. In addition to the full return of his beloved Ann, whom he might worship as he had always done; and the new attentions of dear, dear Francis beyond their age-long bonds of friendship; James also came to care deeply for Francis’s James darling, in all his fascinating and tender contradictions. An echo of a young man once full of mischief and enthusiasm and joy; and yet also a man who carried the same weariness as Francis, who had borne the same burdens – and more – until it broke him. He who wore a thousand masks, even here, but every day he removed one more – until at last there were none left. James Fitzjames – bold and capable but often the most fragile among them all. And every day that he reached out for Francis with love and without fear – though God knew such a gamble of vulnerability could shatter him – every day James darling did so, he grew in James Ross’s estimation. James saw, more and more, what it was Francis loved in him. And, doing so, he loved Francis ever more. 

Now, James Ross stood in his bedroom and watched as these three people he’d come to adore took pleasure from one another. 

Francis was in the middle of the bed – already down to his shirtsleeves, with his waistcoat lying beside him and his overcoat long gone – and Ann sat on his one side and James darling on his other. Currently, Francis was facing Ann, his broad hand cupping her jaw as he passed his thumb over her lips. Ann was well-kissed – _all three of them had made sure of that; or rather, Ann had made sure of it herself, pulling Francis in to kiss her last, a soft thing that made James think of how his own lips had parted Ann’s just before, made him wonder if Francis could taste James’s kiss on Ann’s mouth_ – and she was smiling, now, at Francis’s intent focus, how his gaze lingered upon the shape of her mouth, the angle of her grin. The two of them remained still, a loving stalemate of gentle admiration. 

But behind Francis’s back, James darling hadn’t been idle. His long fingers made short work of the cravat around Francis’s neck, and, having victoriously drawn it from Francis’s collar, James claimed the place revealed with a biting kiss of his own. 

Francis pitched forward and moaned into Ann’s shoulder as James darling pressed his mouth to Francis’ neck. Those long, deft fingers then ran into Francis’s short hair, which shone so well like this, burnished as it was by the lamp-light. At this caress, Francis turned his face to the side and looked to James, still standing beside the bed. The expression on Francis’s face was no longer gentle but now yearning, desperate. 

Dropping his hands from his own collar – whatever task of undressing he’d begun long ago forgotten – James knew at once that he was needed. “My dear Frank,” James said, stepping close to the bed at last. But Francis was already reaching for him and whatever he might have said next was lost against Francis’s hungry lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author's Notes:** Look, this is the chapter that takes its title from "Take Me to Church." It could never be anything but this, really.


	12. First and Fierce Affirming Sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Francis, once again, awakes to a new day.

**First and Fierce Affirming Sight**

_Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier – 1870_

+

Francis had fallen asleep nearest to the windows, so the sun woke him first. 

Though the bed was indeed large, it was quite filled with the four of them, so Francis turned over very carefully and very slowly, taking great pains not to wake any of the others. Before this, they hadn’t all fallen asleep in the same place for the whole night, Francis mused. But after the previous evening, they’d all been too tired and contented to imagine moving, so – after a languid kiss or two, and Ann nearly falling asleep on top of the covers – the necessary arrangements had been made: James darling’s lanky limbs were tucked in around Francis, and Ann, on his other side, had curled herself into her husband's arms until the two of them could have fit within the smallest and most meagre ship’s berth. All were half-dressed at best; the sheets were pulled up modestly, but even from the far side of the bed, Francis could see that James dear’s shirt was a lost cause, and Anne remained deeply asleep, her face pressed against his bare shoulder. 

A soft light had, by this point, settled over more of the bed, catching the swirling dust motes that scattered themselves irregularly like atoms through the sunbeams. Francis, entirely peaceful, tracked the sun’s slow progress across the pillows, until the light finally fell upon James Fitzjames’s cheek. 

Perhaps, if he were to touch that skin, gilded in the faint morning light, it would warm still further under his fingertips, Francis thought. He almost reached out to do just this, but feared – at the last moment – that it would wake James up. Yet what Francis dared not do, the sun had no qualms about accomplishing, and so the light crept ever closer to James’s eyes. 

Francis watched as those eyes flickered open at last, dark and bright at the same time. He might have been ashamed to have been caught staring at James as he slept, if James had not instantly smiled up at him. 

It was an unconscious movement of the face, Francis knew, a soft exhale that made James’s lips part slightly and the tips of his mouth curl up on instinct in a sleep-heavy mimicry of joy. Still, it made Francis happy. He grinned back as James blinked, and stretched, and yawned, before he finally opened his mouth to speak. 

“I’d wanted this, once,” James said, quiet, thoughtful, hazy – as though still in a dream. 

Francis, no longer burdened by the worry of waking him, trailed his fingers over James’s cheek, his jaw, his chin. “Wanted what?” 

“To wake up to you – the first time.” James frowned, apparently realizing that his sleepy words made little sense. “I mean – to have woken up to you when I arrived.” 

Lifting a brow, Francis tried to understand. “But–”

“Oh I know it wouldn’t have been possible, since I arrived first,” James said, light and unconcerned, though the sleep was gone from his voice. “It was just an idle thought, something I’d imagined, around when your James dear showed up.” 

With a pang, Francis understood it all. _The edges of James’s envy, expanding to encompass a jealousy that Francis had been called to find James Clark Ross, that Francis had been marked out – hallowed – by that_ other _James’s love._ “James–” he began, drawn down by dread. 

“No, no, that’s not it–” James broke in once more, his brow creased in worry as he reached up a hand toward Francis’s face. “I’m not making myself clear. I’d imagined, once, what it would have been like if I’d seen your face when I’d awoken on the _Clio_ , if I’d not been alone, but if you’d been there, all sunlit–”

Francis knew something of James’s lonely journey on the _Clio_ – thanks largely to Ann, but neither James – nor, in fact, Le Vesconte, whom Francis knew had followed somewhat later – much spoke of it. 

There had been no one there for James, then. No one waiting for him, after those long days of agony that James had endured before Francis had finally agreed to end it for him, not thinking that he would be sending James to this place all alone. It was like that for some – not everyone had someone waiting for them on the other side, Francis knew, but still it tore at him. It had been hard to believe in anything like heaven, back then, but he’d still prayed that there would be peace and rest waiting for James. They had both prayed – together – that last night. Or rather, Francis had cried, and begged, and – at James’s urging – bent his head until James could lift one weakened hand to touch his brow. Maybe he’d meant it as an absolution, but he’d lost the ability to speak by then, so Francis had never known; indeed, Francis had borne the memory of his touch more as a mark of Cain than as anything else. 

“–but this?” James said, bringing Francis back. His fingers were warm, now, on Francis’s face, and he seemed entirely, miraculously untouched by Francis’s melancholy. “This is far better,” James said, smiling. “What we’ve made, here.” 

Francis leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to James’s lips. He could feel James’s smile continuing unabated, against his own mouth, before he lifted his head. 

“You’re happy, then?” he asked, a whisper. If James could be happy, perhaps Francis could also manage it. So many of his worries and fears had passed away, and here, in the silvered sunlight, were gathered those whom Francis loved best. 

James nodded, smile brightening. 

Reassured, Francis settled down and gathered James into his arms. It was a comfort simply to hold him, and, beneath the sheet and coverlet, James had stayed so warm that it made Francis shiver just to realize that he’d once been cold. When James saw this, he pressed closer, his hands rising to offer heat to Francis’s cheek once again, before he tugged Francis in to kiss him more firmly. 

Almost at the same moment that Francis thought to press open James’s lips, to grasp him just a bit tighter, a sleepy sigh sounded from the other side of the bed – sleepy, but clearly on the road to waking up. With a last, reluctant caress, Francis pulled away. 

But James remained; ran a hand along Francis’s face, passing his fingers over the side of Francis’s throat and around to the back of his neck. Holding Francis thus, James appeared to admire him for a moment until Francis blushed and James relented, gracing Francis’s cheek with a single kiss before he turned himself over to watch Ann’s gradual awakening, leaving Francis with only the sight of his lovely, tangled hair. 

Francis lifted his own fingers, then, and touched the place where James had kissed him last, remembering his first sight of James just after his own arrival, when James had stood at the far end of the pier with the light gleaming in his hair; remembering that first time James had kissed him, the careful shape of his lips against Francis’s cheek, so hesitant with Tom and Ann and Jopson looking on. How far they’d come, Francis thought; how much more might yet lie ahead – and he no longer feared the thought. 

Pressing a kiss to James’s bed-mussed curls, Francis felt peace descend on him once more. “I love you,” he said. “My light.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author’s Note:** Alright, folks, that’s it – I think this will be my last major Rossierfitzann story in this universe, although these four may appear in the background of other afterlife stories within this AU, so I’m keeping the series “unfinished.” I owe an enormous debt to @[kaserl](https://kaserl.tumblr.com) for faithfully beta-ing all these chapters; infinite gratitude goes to the artists & Rossier server friends who allowed me to incorporate their wonderful work and ideas; and I leave a final thank you to all of you who’ve joined me on this adventure – I hope you enjoyed it! 
> 
> (Bonus: there’s a chart [here](https://annecoulmanross.tumblr.com/post/632413237909094400/first-and-fierce-affirming-sight-1870-in-which), showing all of the endearments used at the ends of each of the chapters of this fic.)


End file.
